Let that sink in for a moment. The states are being directed to withhold EBT transfers for the month of November until further notice. Should this happen, 50 million American citizens will be left without the means to feed their families until their cards are once again funded. Most of these people aren't working and don't have the money to buy food because they're largely dependent on government handouts to feed their families. If their cards aren't funded for more than a day or two, expect wide-scale chaos, especially in lower-income areas rife with those needing assistance.

If and when the EBT system stops feeding the poor, expect wide-scale civil unrest.

What does this mean to the average person who doesn't require assistance? It means you'd better be prepared for the chaos. When the EBT system went down for a few hours on October 12th things started to get ugly. Here's what the Twitterverse has to say about the EBT cutoff:

Just don't kill too many people with jobs. They're the ones paying for your benefits.

If the EBT system isn't funded, expect rioting and looting in grocery stores as desperate people grab as much food as they can get. Once the food in the poor areas is gone, grocery stores everywhere will be looted. After that, chaos will ensue. Here's to hoping the government doesn't let things get to that point.

Hope for the best, but prepare for the worst. Things could get ugly in a hurry.

According to a new article from the Washington Post, top secret documents released by Edward Snowden reveal the government is collecting hundreds of millions of contact lists from people around the world, including those of Americans. This stands in stark contrast to what President Obama had to say a few short months ago on the NSA monitoring the American people's e-mail:

In case that wasn't clear enough, here's another clip of Obama stating the NSA's e-mail collection program doesn't apply to U.S. citizens:

Seems to me somebody has some explaining to do.

According to the article, the NSA issued a statement that didn't deny the claim, but "claimed it was not seeking personal details from most Americans." The documents released paint a different picture. Hundreds of thousands of contact lists are collected on a daily basis, which equates to hundreds of millions a year. Many of them are from American citizens.

People should be upset about this, but most probably won't pay it any mind...

Thousands upon thousands of war veterans and their supporters poured into Washington, D.C. yesterday to protest the government's closure of war memorials and national monuments. I hope the government was paying attention. The people are tired of being used as pawns in the government's political chess games.

The protestors broke down barricades at the WWII memorial while singing "Tear down these walls." The barricades have been dubbed "BarryCades" by some, because it's believed by many the orders to shut down the memorials came from Obama himself.

Here are some pictures from Twitter of the vets and their supporters during the protest:

The National Cancer Institute (NCI) is one of the leading authorities on cancer in the world. It's part of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and is tasked with the monumental job of researching cancer and disseminating information on cancer to the rest of the world.

In a move that surprised many, a group of scientists associated with the NCI published a paper that could dramatically lower the number of cases of cancer diagnosed each year. The paper doesn't seek to eliminate cancer through lifestyle changes or by introducing a groundbreaking new cure. Instead, it seeks to redefine what the word cancer means. There won't be fewer cases of cancer by today's standards, but the redefinition would mean there would be less cases diagnosed moving forward.

Here's what the scientists had to say in the paper:

"The word “cancer” often invokes the specter of an inexorably lethal process; however, cancers are heterogeneous and can follow multiple paths, not all of which progress to metastases and death, and include indolent disease that causes no harm during the patient’s lifetime. Better biology alone can explain better outcomes. Although this complexity complicates the goal of early diagnosis, its recognition provides an opportunity to adapt cancer screening with a focus on identifying and treating those conditions most likely associated with morbidity and mortality."

This attempt to redefine cancer could mean any number of things.

It could mean doctors have been overaggressive in recent years when it comes to diagnosing and treating cancer in its earlier stages. If this is truly the case, I can't help but wonder how many people's quality of life have been affected by unnecessary surgeries and harsh chemotherapy treatments.

The government may be seeking to redefine cancer in an attempt to have to treat less people in the face of millions of uncovered individuals signing up for health care. If fewer tumors qualify as cancer, less people will require treatment, in turn saving the government what could be a significant chunk of money. Tumors that aren't considered life threatening may not be treated at all under the new definition. The problem lies in the fact that some of these tumors could eventually become life threatening when they could have been treated in earlier stages.

Regardless of the reason, this is one to keep a close eye on. We need to make sure cancer isn't being redefined in order to save the government money at the expense of human lives.

My, how times have changed. Just 7 short years ago Barack Obama was in the position Congress is in now, but he was on the other side of the table. He was a member of Congress faced with a vote to raise the debt ceiling.

Here's what he had to say then:

"The fact that we are here today to debate raising America's debt limit is a sign of leadership failure. It is a sign that the U.S. Government can't pay it's own bills. It is a sign that we now depend of ongoing financial assistance from foreign countries to finance our Government's reckless fiscal policies. Over the past 5 years, our federal debt has increased by $3.5 trillion to $8.6 trillion. That is 'trillion' with a 't.'"

We agreed with that statement then, and we agree with that statement now. Seven years later, there's a different leader, but the debt ceiling still looms and now the current administration is calling for an increase. It's time to stop the bleeding. We can't continue borrowing money from foreign countries to send to other foreign countries. We can't continue paying out billions to people in our own country who are capable of working, but don't because they're living off free handouts. We can't continue going further and further in debt.